Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a brake detecting system and method. More particularly, the present disclosure relates to an abnormal detecting system and method for a pneumatic brake that can clear fault or activate a backup system preliminary.
Description of Related Art
The reaction of a driver is not sufficient to handle an increasingly complicated driving environment, and thus driving safety is dramatically dependent on the reaction capability of each individual driver. A brake assist system is of such important that it has been dramatically developed to increase driving safety. Such a brake assist system commonly provides functionalities that remind the driver to turn off the power, activate the parking brake or cut off the electricity when a brake failure occurs. However, abnormal pressure phenomena when a vehicle traveling is not sufficiently studied.
The abnormal pressure is a main factor that causes brake failure of a van, a truck or a large vehicle, etc. Conventionally, the method used for determining abnormal pneumatic brake only detects the pressure of an air reservoir, and the backup scenario is only to increase assist air source, as those disclosed in Taiwan patent No. 1312324B. Another abnormal brake detecting method is to evaluate brake pedal strength and air reservoir pressure, as disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 7,216,552B2. However, to a real vehicle driver, it's difficult to determine a front brake failure or a rear brake failure simply by the air source and the brake pedal, therefore, an emergency brake failure often occurs, thus the pneumatic brake will fail again or cannot be activated in time. Turnover of a vehicle is also commonly seen owing to an emergency brake failure.
Conventionally, a backup method is used to solve the aforementioned problem. However, the method that increases an air source will easily fail under an extreme situation. For example, in a situation of excessive vehicle speed or when two vehicles are too close, the aforementioned method cannot response to a brake position in time owing to the different activation mechanisms and positions of the air source, thus the vehicle speed cannot be decreased in time or the automatic brake cannot be activated in time, thereby a collision still occurs.
Furthermore, the aforementioned situation occurs frequently in a brake assist system that can only display warning messages to the driver. The driver cannot fully solve the brake failure situation using insufficient information and low response time. Therefore, there is a need to develop an abnormal detecting system for a pneumatic brake that can be applied in any failure situation. Furthermore, there is also a need to develop a brake backup system that can reduce the pneumatic brake failure of large vehicles.